Braves’ latest deal just made the Padres’ Xander Bogaerts contract look smarter

Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first to report the Atlanta Braves bringing back Ha-Seong Kim on a one-year, $20 million deal, and Padres fans are allowed to have a weird reaction in two different directions.

First: that should’ve been a Padres reunion… and instead it’s Atlanta.

Second: wait… $20 million for one year? Oh. So this is what the market looks like now.

Braves paying Ha-Seong Kim changes the optics on the Padres’ Xander Bogaerts contract

That’s the sneaky part here: the Braves paid the “there aren’t many shortstops left” tax. One year, massive AAV, no long-term commitment. That kind of deal screams scarcity, not bargain shopping. 

And that’s where the Padres’ Xander Bogaerts contract suddenly looks… less like an artifact from the “throw money at everything” era.

San Diego's 11-year, $280 million dollar contract with Bogaerts is still huge, and is risky as far as the back-end of the contract is concerned. It will still be scrutinized by Padres' fans during each of San Diego's cold streaks. However, this move by the Braves reminds us that the Padres paid a premium for a player they knew was going to hit, and that would give them a proven bat at a premium position without having to pay $20 million to rent that bat for one year.

The Padres even built their infield around that math. In 2024, Bogaerts moved to second base so Kim could play short.  Then in 2025, Bogaerts slid back to shortstop once Kim was gone.  That whole sequence was basically San Diego acknowledging, in real time, how hard it is to solve shortstop without either (a) paying big or (b) getting lucky.

And look — we’re not saying Bogaerts has been a world-beater. He’s had dips, he’s dealt with injuries, and the “peak Bogaerts” version hasn’t shown up consistently in brown and gold. But he hit .263 with 11 homers and 20 steals in 136 games in 2025, and when you stack that against Kim’s injury-plagued 2025 line (.234, five homers, six steals in 48 games), it’s hard not to notice the value gap. 

Bogaerts’ deal carries an AAV of about $25.5M, meaning he’s only roughly $5.5M per year more than what Atlanta just paid for a stopgap. And that doesn’t magically make the contract “good”… but it absolutely makes it look more normal in 2026’s reality.